Henley v. Amecher

Decision Date28 January 2002
Docket NumberM1999-02799-COA-R3-CV
PartiesRANDALL DEWAYNE HENLEY, ET AL. v. RUSSELL DALE AMACHER, ET AL.IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE
CourtTennessee Court of Appeals

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Franklin County No. 9780-CIV Buddy D. Perry, Judge

This appeal involves an early morning, drunken joyride by four teenagers that ended when their sport utility vehicle overturned. One of the passengers who was injured when he was thrown from the vehicle sued the driver and his father in the Circuit Court for Franklin County seeking $200,000. A jury assessed the passenger's damages and attributed 75% of the fault to the driver and 25% of the fault to the passenger. In accordance with the jury's verdict, the trial court awarded the passenger a $34,125 judgment against the driver and his father. On this appeal, the driver and his father take issue with (1) the allocation of less than 50% of the fault to the passenger, (2) the lack of evidence to support the application of the family purpose doctrine, (3) the awards for permanent impairment and future medical expenses, and (4) the trial court's refusal to give two requested instructions. We have determined that the only reversible error in the proceeding involves the jury's decision to award the passenger $20,000 for future medical expenses. Accordingly, we affirm the jury's verdict as to liability and allocation of fault. With regard to the damage award, we suggest a remittitur which, if accepted, will reduce the passenger's judgment to $19,125.

Paul Campbell, Jr., Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellants, Kenneth D. Amacher and Russell Dale Amacher.

Robert S. Peters, Winchester, Tennessee, for the appellees, Randall Dewayne Henley and Deborah Henley.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed in Part and Vacated in Part

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BEN H. CANTRELL, P.J., M.S., and WILLIAM B. CAIN, J., joined.

OPINION
I.

In mid-1995, Russell Dale ("Rusty") Amacher and his brother, Chris Amacher, were living in Franklin County with their grandmother because their parents were going through a divorce. Although he was only sixteen, Mr. Amacher had received institutionalized treatment for alcohol abuse on two occasions. Relations between Rusty Amacher and his parents had become strained.

On the night of June 27, 1995, Rusty Amacher borrowed his brother's 1987 GMC Jimmy and picked up Randall DeWayne Henley at approximately 7:00 p.m. Mr. Henley, then seventeen years old, had been friends with Mr. Amacher since the seventh grade and knew about Mr. Amacher's struggle with alcohol. The two boys decided that they were "going to hang out the whole night." Accordingly, they began the evening by obtaining a pint of Fighting Cock whiskey and driving to Al Tripp's house where they drank the whiskey and chased it with a soft drink.

After stopping by a young lady's house in Tullahoma, the two boys drove to Jeremy Bryant's house in Estill Springs. They stopped along the way to purchase a case of beer. When they arrived at Mr. Bryant's house at approximately 3:00 a.m. on June 28, 1995, they discovered that another friend, Charlie Tawater, was also there. Messrs. Bryant and Tawater were seventeen years old. Messrs. Amacher and Henley awakened Messrs. Bryant and Tawater, and the four boys sat around talking and drinking beer until approximately 5:30 a.m. Messrs. Bryant and Tawater each consumed two or three beers, and Messrs. Amacher and Henley consumed the rest of the case.

Some time before daylight, the boys decided to go horseback riding. Messrs. Bryant and Tawater, sensing that Mr. Amacher was intoxicated, offered to drive, and a discussion ensued about which of the boys would drive. When Mr. Amacher insisted that he was able to drive, his three friends acquiesced because he was providing the car. Accordingly, the boys set out from Mr. Bryant's house with Mr. Amacher driving, Mr. Henley in the front passenger's seat, and Messrs. Bryant and Tawater in the rear seat.

Just over one mile beyond the city limits of Estill Springs, Mr. Amacher's erratic driving prompted Mr. Bryant to demand that he pull over and stop the car. When Mr. Amacher turned around to talk with Mr. Bryant, he drove the car off the road. When he attempted to return to the roadway, Mr. Amacher overcorrected and caused the vehicle to overturn. Mr. Henley was thrown from the car and seriously injured the ligaments in his right knee. A test of the alcohol in a sample of Mr. Amacher's blood taken a short time later revealed a blood alcohol content of .24%.1

Mr. Henley had his injured knee surgically reconstructed in August 1995. In June 1996, he and his mother2 filed suit against Mr. Amacher and his father seeking $200,000 in damages for the injuries he sustained when the was thrown from the vehicle in June 1995. Mr. Amacher and his father denied liability, asserting that Mr. Henley was aware of Mr. Amacher's intoxication and that Mr. Henley had assumed the risk of riding with Mr. Amacher. Mr. Amacher's father also asserted that he was not liable because he had not consented to his son's use of the vehicle and because his son was not using the vehicle for a family purpose on the morning of June 28, 1995.

Following a trial in October 1998, a jury determined that Mr. Amacher had been driving the vehicle for a family purpose on June 28, 1995. The jury determined that Mr. Henley's damages amounted to $45,500,3 that Mr. Amacher was 75% at fault, and that Mr. Henley was 25% at fault. Accordingly, the trial court entered a judgment against Mr. Amacher and his father for $34,125.4 After moving unsuccessfully for a new trial, Mr. Amacher and his father perfected this appeal.

II. THE REQUESTED JURY INSTRUCTIONS

We turn first to the assertion by Mr. Amacher and his father that the trial court erred by refusing to give two requested instructions regarding a passenger's obligation to protect his or her own safety when the operator of a motor vehicle is intoxicated. These proposed instructions, based on cases predating the Tennessee Supreme Court's adoption of its system of modified comparative fault, essentially instructed the jury that a passenger who knowingly rode with an intoxicated driver was solely responsible for his or her own injuries. We have determined that the trial court correctly declined to give these instructions.

A.

The chief defense of Mr. Amacher and his father to Mr. Henley's complaint for damages was that Mr. Henley was solely responsible for the injury he sustained on June 28, 1995, because he decided to ride in a motor vehicle being driven by a person he knew to be intoxicated. Accordingly, Mr. Amacher and his father requested the trial court to include two specific instructions in its charge to the jury. The first requested instruction was:

I instruct you that the law of Tennessee is that when one gets into an automobile which is to be operated by a drunken driver, such person takes his life in his hands.

The second requested instruction was:

I instruct you that the law of Tennessee is that as a general proposition, a guest-passenger is precluded from recovering for injuries sustained in an automobile accident where the intoxicated condition of the driver of the automobile in which the passenger was riding was the proximate cause of the accident, if the guest-passenger knew or should have known of the driver's intoxication at the time the guest-passenger volunteered to ride in the automobile.

Whether or not the guest passenger is contributorily negligent in riding in the automobile of the defendant is not to be determined on the circumstances as they appear to the guest-passenger, but is to be determined by comparing the guest-passenger's conduct with that of an ordinarily prudent man under the circumstances.

The trial court declined to give these requested instructions. It concluded that "the charge straight from the charge book that defines the obligation of a guest passenger in a vehicle" was adequate and thus refused to "inject specific facts into . . . my charge." Accordingly, the trial court instructed the jury, in part, that:

In summary, both Randall Henley and Russell Amacher had a duty to exercise reasonable care with regard to the actual and potential dangers existing from the weather, the road, the traffic, and other conditions, including their personal conditions, and to follow the traffic laws as I have instructed you.

Now, a passenger has a duty to take action for self protection from danger only if, number one, when it is apparent that the passenger can no longer rely upon the driver for protection as when the driver's conduct shows incompetence to drive or when the driver is unmindful and does not know of a danger known to the passenger, and, number two, if the passenger becomes aware of the danger at a time and under a circumstance when the passenger could have prevented the harm.5

On this appeal, Mr. Amacher and his father assert that their requested instructions were correct statements of the law and that they were applicable to the evidence that had been presented. Accordingly, they assert that they were prejudiced by the trial court's refusal to give these instructions.

B.

Juries have the exclusive prerogative to decide all of the disputed factual issues submitted to them based on the legal principles provided by the trial court. Ingram v. Earthman, 993 S.W.2d 611, 635 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998); Ladd v. Honda Motor Co., 939 S.W.2d 83, 93 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1996). The trial court's instructions are the sole source of the legal principles to be used by the jury to guide its deliberations. State ex rel. Myers v. Brown, 209 Tenn. 141, 148-49, 351 S.W.2d 385, 388 (1961); Grissom v. Metropolitan Gov't, 817 S.W.2d 679, 685 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1991). Thus, the soundness of every jury's verdict rests on the fairness and accuracy of the trial court's instructions. Ladd v....

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